Cress v. Nexo Capital Inc.
- Thomas Hixson
- 3:23-cv-00882
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In John Cress v. Nexo Capital, Judge Hixson granted in part and denied in part Cress’s sealing motion and denied Nexo’s.
John Cress and Nexo Capital Inc.; the order also affects public access to the identified court filings and protects the email addresses of Nexo customers who are not parties to the case.
What happened
In John Cress v. Nexo Capital Inc., John Cress and Nexo Capital asked the court to keep documents connected to Cress’s request to amend his complaint from public view. The lawsuit alleges that Nexo parties fraudulently induced Cress to take out loans secured by digital assets that were later sold; Nexo Capital is the only remaining defendant.
The court applied a good-cause standard because the documents were submitted with a request to amend a complaint, which is not a final case-dispositive motion. It found good cause to seal certain Nexo business records, financial information, and non-public communications with regulators, and to redact Nexo customers’ email addresses. Nexo did not provide the required justification for sealing four documents attached to its opposition.
Judge Thomas S. Hixson granted in part and denied in part Cress’s administrative motion, directing some exhibits to remain sealed, others to be filed publicly, and two to be filed publicly with customer email addresses redacted. He denied Nexo’s administrative motion and directed Nexo to file its four exhibits publicly within four days.
The detailed version
- Cress v. Nexo Capital Inc. · No. 3:23-cv-00882
- Thomas Hixson
- Oct. 30, 2025
Background
John Cress sued Nexo Financial LLC, Nexo Financial Services Ltd., Nexo AG, Nexo Capital, Inc., and Antoni Trenchev, alleging that the Nexo parties fraudulently induced him to take out loans collateralized by millions of dollars in digital assets that the Nexo parties ultimately sold. Nexo Capital, Inc. is the only remaining defendant.
The court considered two administrative motions asking whether another party’s materials should be filed under seal. Cress filed the first motion in connection with his motion for leave to amend his first amended complaint. Nexo filed the second motion in connection with its opposition to Cress’s amendment request.
Legal standard
The court explained that judicial records are generally presumed to be open to public inspection. For documents connected to non-dispositive motions, however, a party may obtain sealing based on a showing of “good cause.” The court determined that this standard applied to both motions because the documents were submitted with a motion for leave to amend.
Under the district’s local rule, when one party designates material as confidential, the party seeking to file it under seal must identify the material. The designating party must then provide a statement or declaration explaining the private or public interests supporting sealing, the injury that would result from disclosure, and why a less restrictive alternative would not be sufficient. Failure to provide that explanation may result in the material being made public.
Cress’s administrative motion
Nexo supported sealing eight exhibits identified in Cress’s motion. The court found good cause to seal the exhibits because they concerned Nexo’s confidential business information and non-public correspondence with regulators. The court therefore granted Cress’s motion as to the following exhibits to the Taylor-Copeland Declaration: Exhibits 2, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, and 17.
The court also found good cause to redact the email addresses of Nexo customers who were not parties to the case from Exhibits 4 and 15. It directed Nexo to file those two exhibits publicly, with the customer email addresses redacted, within four days of the order.
Nexo stated that it did not seek sealing of Exhibits 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 14. The court therefore denied Cress’s motion as to those exhibits and directed Cress to file them in the public record within four days.
Nexo’s administrative motion
Nexo sought to seal Exhibits 8, 9, 10, and 11 to the Shelton Declaration. Under the local rule, Cress had seven days to file a statement or declaration supporting the sealing request. Cress did not do so. The court denied Nexo’s administrative motion and directed Nexo to file all four exhibits in the public record within four days.
Disposition
The court granted in part and denied in part Cress’s administrative motion to seal. It denied Nexo’s administrative motion to seal.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.